June 18, 2012 
The winner of the 59th Sydney Film Festival’s Official Competition was announced yesterday. Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Alps was named by the jury as the best of the fest, beating out heavy competition from Sundance hit Beasts of the Southern Wild and Cate Shortland‘s long-anticipated Lore.
Lanthimos’ Alps is the Greek director’s follow-up to Oscar nominated Dogtooth, and concerns a group of lost souls willing to act as stand-ins for those grieving the death of a loved one.
It was one of the more polarising flicks of the fest for critics and audiences, though apparently not amongst the SFF Jury, which included Jury President Rachel Ward, Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Boyd Van Hoeij, and Lorna Tee.
Lanthimos received $60,000 for his troubles.
Last year’s Official Competition victor was Asghar Farhadi‘s eventual Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award winner A Separation.
Killing Anna won the FOXTEL Australian Documentary Prize, which came with $10,000. Yardbird was the Dendy Award winner for Best Live-Action Short; Dumpy Goes to the Big Smoke picked up the Rouben Mamoulian Award; and The Maker collected the Yoram Gross Animation Award.
Check out our review of Alps here.
You can find all our coverage of the 2012 Sydney Film Festival here.
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